Port Orange Florida, November 1, 2007 – The First Alert System Text (FAST) corporation announces the release of its first ever Secure Campus Grant program. The purpose of this solicitation is to assist up to 100 college and university campuses throughout the United States establish a text message based emergency notification system for student, faculty and staff at no cost to the institution.

FAST Corporation has recently negotiated and established formal agreements with all major cell phone carriers in the United States to utilize the Short Message Peer to Peer (SMPP) protocol to deliver text messages via standard cell phones. These are the first agreements of this kind utilizing the SMPP protocol and pave the way for a reliable, nation wide system of alerts that can also be customized to meet the needs of even the smallest organization.

Unlike other text message notification systems currently available that use the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the SMPP based system developed by FAST Corporation is unaffected by spam blocks or heavy phone usage (as may occur in an emergency) and can reliably send more messages in less time than any other method available today.

Company president Robert Craddock recently stated, “The single most important fact we want those who are responsible for campus security to know is, because FAST has partnered with VeriSign (cell phone aggregator) we can assure rapid text message delivery and avoid the rarely revealed inefficiencies of typical SMS cell text delivery systems using the SMTP method, (also known as ’email-to-text).”

The First Alert System Text application is unique because it utilizes a shared responsibility model to give individuals access to emergency notifications. Unlike other emergency alert providers that charge organizations enormous setup and annual fees, a fee per subscriber and/or a fee per message sent; access to notifications is paid by those receiving the notifications not the organization issuing the alerts. Any individual desiring emergency alerts may subscribe through their cell phone company for only .99 per month. Once subscribed, they will receive local alerts plus, they may elect to receive alerts from any other zip code or locations throughout the United States that they choose. Opting in and out of the service is as easy as voting for American Idol. The only equipment required is a cell phone capable of receiving text messages.

According to Robert Craddock, “This is the perfect solution for those academic institutions struggling to find a way to provide emergency notifications to their students, faculty and staff without investing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in systems that probably will not be able to perform as promised in an actual emergency. We believe the need to better protect college students is here now. We believe FAST will help fulfill that need now. That is why we have chosen to provide grants to colleges and universities looking for an effective, affordable solution to emergency notifications.”

Institutions receiving the Secure Campus Grant will have the set up and licensing fees waived and be provided all software and technical support required to implement the FAST system, (valued at up to $2,500.00). In addition, grant recipients will be provided collateral materials to inform students, faculty and staff of the services and how to access alerts and thereby increase campus safety.

All applications for the 2008 Secure Campus Grant are due by December 14, 2007. Applications are available at http://www.FirstAlertText.com. Questions about this grant program may be E-mailed to Grants@FirstAlertText.com.

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FAST Corporation Nov. 1 press release

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